Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 10, 2022

Devarim, 5:7: You shall not recognize other gods in My Presence.Devarim, 6:4: Hear, Israel, HaShem is our G-d, HaShem in the One and Only.

Two of the most well-known passages in the Torah appear in this weeks Torah portion: The Ten Commandments and the Shema. On close analysis, there seems to be a repetition between two of the mitzvot that feature in these passages.

The second of the Ten Commandments is the prohibition to follow other gods (elohim acheirim), and the Shema itself is the mitzvah to believe that God is the one and only God, (Yichud Hashem), which indicates that it is forbidden to believe in many gods. This prohibition seems to have been already covered in the mitzvah not to follow other gods, so what is added by the mitzvah to believe that there is only one God?

Evidently, the mitzvah of belief that God is one goes a lot further than just the requirement to believe that there is only one God.

In order to fully understand this mitzvah and contrast it to the mitzvah of not following other gods it is first necessary to explain what it means not to follow other gods and how this applies nowadays. In earlier times, there was a widespread desire to actively worship false gods so this mitzvah was highly pertinent. However, the Talmud relates that the Men of the Great Assembly removed the inclination of Idol worship, therefore, it would appear that from that time on, this mitzvah is basically obsolete. How does it apply to us?

In truth, this mitzvah is highly pertinent at all times. A false god is not just a physical idol, rather it is anything that a person ascribes power to, meaning that he believes that this thing is the source of a persons success. It can include money, desires, oneself, ones boss, or any number of other things that a person feels are the key to his success in life.

The Gemara1 points out another false god that influences everyone. King David in Psalms2 states that there should not be within you a strange god. The Gemara explains that this strange god refers to the negative inclination (yetzer hara) that actually pervades a persons very consciousness. One possible meaning of this is that the negative inclination itself is what controls a persons drives and fulfilling its desires will provide a person with satisfaction. And in this form, it is a kind of false god.

Thus, the mitzvah not to have other gods tells us that all those forces that convince us that the way to succeed is through them, are null and void when contrasted to the all-powerful God.

Yet, there is still something lacking in what a persons attitude should be towards the various sources of power outside of God - that is where the mitzvah of belief in one God steps in: This mitzvah teaches that all of these powers are not fighting God, they are not against Him. Rather, in truth, they are part of Gods purpose, just like everything in Creation.

For example, the ultimate goal of the negative inclination is not to cause us to turn away from God, rather its goal is for us to overcome its temptations and thereby become closer to Him. This is why the Sages state that when God saw that the creation on the sixth day was very good in contrast to the other days where it was merely good, He was referring to the creation of the negative inclination - it is indeed very good because it brings us closer to our purpose of coming closer to God by overcoming its challenges. So too, the other powers that we view as taking away from closeness to God are also tools to get closer to Him.

In this vein, another application of belief in one God is that everything that happens to a person is directed at the same purpose of bringing him closer to God. Thus, seemingly bad events that take place come from God just as much as pleasant Divine Providence. Both are there to bring us closer to him, albeit in different ways. Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits, Rosh Yeshivah of Aish HaTorah, expresses this even regard to minor suffering that we view as nuisances. In his words3:

We say that some things are good and some things are bad. What are you talking about? That negates [the idea of] "Hashem is our God, God is one!" You mean some things are working in one direction and some things in the other direction? Everything was created for the same purpose, because it has the same source, and its source is only good! Everything is made up of this Hashem-liness. Everything is good. Everything is created only for the sake of bringing us back to connecting to Hashem, being one with Hashem, and taking pleasure in it! Oh, I'd really want to learn, but I keep getting these problems in life. I really want to learn but I caught a cold, what a nuisance. It's standing in the way of my service of God.

Baloney! You mean there's something other than nature that is there for the sake of bringing you to eternal pleasure? You mean this cold is a nuisance that came in from Mars, it came from another sphere? This cold was created to bring you closer to Hashem no less than anything - than your siddur and your Gemara and your Chumash. It is just that there are lots of different aspects of our growth. There are many different things we have to learn, and there are some things you can only learn when you have a cold. Now go figure out what that was for. Absolutely everything is pointing in the same direction. Everything has the same purpose. There's total unity in everything. There are no other forces. There's no evil. It's illusion! We're misunderstanding it, because we take it seriously. We think it's really, really evil. It's not.4

Thus, the mitzvah to believe that God is one builds on the mitzvah not to follow other gods, and tells us that as well as viewing these perceived sources of success in our lives as null and void against God, we should actually look at them as helping us get close to God. May we all succeed in fulfilling both of these seminal mitzvot in the ideal fashion.

Visit link:

Don't Believe in Other Gods Versus God is One - aish.com Ancient Wisdom & Modern Psychology - Aish.com

Category: Talmud
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